Stuart, Ragnarsson Shouldered the Load

Ray Ratto

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 15, 2001

2001-04-15 04:00:00 PDT St. Louis -- THE NOTEBOOKS and cameras crowded around Evgeni Nabokov after his first playoff shutout, trying to get the 25-year-old Sharks goaltender to explain his heroics to a breathless world.

So he shrugged, and tried. He did, after all, repel the St. Louis Blues through the better part of three hours and 28 shots, and no goals for the other team pretty much means you win.

Yet, the real differences in San Jose's 1-0 win in Game 2 of the betcha- it's-gonna-go-seven-games series came well before then, with a few hockey subtleties (if that's not an oxymoron).

The first came 80 seconds into the game, when defenseman Brad Stuart stepped hard into St. Louis troublemaker Dallas Drake to get his own game started.

The second occurred 13 minutes later, when defenseman Marcus Ragnarsson fell on his elbows to the ice and popped his left shoulder out for the umpteenth time. He winced in the kind of pain only a joint that won't skate its own wing can create, skated in some agony to the bench, popped the shoulder back in again, and didn't miss a turn.

Yet, because Stuart got his sea legs back so quickly after missing the first game, and because Ragnarsson coaxed his shoulder back into protective custody, the Sharks were able to defend Nabokov well enough to pull even in the series and head back to San Jose for tomorrow's third game.

"The game was really the same as the one the other night," head coach Darryl Sutter said afterward. "This time, we were able to get the first goal, and defensively we were better today."

That didn't figure, given that the Sharks had already lost their best offensive defenseman, Gary Suter, to a Stage Two rung bell, and had to adjust most of their defensive pairings to accommodate Stuart's reinsertion into the lineup. And it only got worse when Ragnarsson went down after a collision with St. Louis winger Pavol Demitra and looked like he might be shelved for the rest of the day.

Instead, San Jose played a much tighter game, giving the Blues only a few good scoring chances inside 25 feet and making sure that Nabokov's first save would be the only one he would need to provide.

"We were able to keep the area around Nabby pretty clear," defenseman Scott Hannan said. "We wanted to let him make the first save, and then not let them get a second one. Nabby came up big tonight, but I thought we played pretty well as a team defensively."

All of which is true, but the obvious development was Stuart dressing for Game 2, and then being paired with Ragnarsson, who is usually matched with Mike Rathje. The chances for misalignments and miscommunications were evident, not to mention the manifestation of Stuart's nerves.

"It usually takes a few shifts to get your legs under you and get comfortable, so you want to try to get a big hit early and get out the butterflies," said Stuart, whose play on the back line this season has been at best streaky. "It was good to get that first hit right away. After that, it was just adrenaline and emotion, just like normal."

"It really wasn't that different having Stu out there," Ragnarsson said. "I'm used to playing with Rat (Rathje). . . . I don't know, maybe I played a few shifts with Stuie, but I don't know. But it wasn't hard at all. We had to talk a little more out there, where with Rat we pretty much know each other pretty well."

As for the shoulder? Ragnarsson laughed at the topic, trying not to cop to what the civilians had clearly seen without insulting what intelligence they did have.

"No big deal," he said with a smile. "I've done it before, so I pretty much know what to do. It hurts for a little while, then it's all right."

When it was suggested to him, though, that had he not been able to continue,

the Sharks would not only have had to play with five defensemen for the second consecutive game, but without their best offensive and defensive defensemen, he laughed again and dropped another "No big deal."

Of course, he can say that now. The series is tied, just as it was last year before the two teams headed to San Jose. Of course, last time, the Sharks won Games 3 and 4 and it was all the Blues could do just to force a seventh game.

But the Sharks came closer to being squeezed out of the series than anyone wants to admit. That they didn't is a testament to their ability to play the kind of hockey that works best in the playoffs -- tough, inelegant hockey that is often hard on the untrained eye.

It is also a testament to Brad Stuart's determination not to let Gary Suter's absence strangle his teammates.

And finally, it is a testament to Marcus Ragnarsson and his novelty shoulder. If you see him on the street, maybe you can get him to open a beer bottle with it.

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